Introduction to Urban

Design

URBAN DESIGN (AR-7104)

Department of Architecture
National Institute of Technology, Patna
 WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN?

According to Aristotle, the world’s first urban designer was Hippodamus of Miletus who in the 5th Century BC laid out the
Port of Athens with a rational street grid system and a central plaza.
Hippodamus wrote up his ideas in the highly influential text, Urban Planning Study for Piraeus, and later went on to plan
the new city of Thurium.

Modern urban design theory emerged in the late 1920’s in response to worsening health, housing, transportation and
other urban problems.
In 1928 Le Corbusier and other architects and planners established the Congres Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, or
CIAM to explore topics and models for modern, rational city building. As its name implies, CIAM was largely driven by
architectural considerations but with rational city form as the objective.
Members conducted regular congresses and argued issues such as whether dense urban forms such as Le Corbusier Radiant
City, Garden city model proposed by the English contingent were more appropriate. The discussions were predominantly
philosophic and technocratic – experts opining on what a city should be based on theory and conjecture rather than an
informed understanding of the relationships between people and their environments.
 WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN?

Unfortunately, when applied, these new modern urbanism models failed to produce the utopian results that were
promised. Particularly in large scale urban renewal and infrastructure projects, the theoretical models and architectural
concepts resulted in barren, inhospitable developments and intrusive, neighbourhood crushing freeways.
Research techniques and methodologies from the 1960s and 70s formed a strong foundation for urban design theory and
practice. But there was another piece to the puzzle. The discipline was still seen as a top-down, expert driven exercise.

Professor Meyer Wolfe, who developed a theoretical framework for incorporating urban design in the compressive
planning and political decision-making processes.

As articulated by Professor Meyer Wolfe, Urban design is the manipulation of the physical environment, in a way that
• Pursues multiple objectives,
• For multiple clients (including affected members of the public), that
• Addresses the way people perceive and behave in their surroundings,
• Considers the implications of form-giving actions (including the environmental and ecological consequences) at a range
of scales (sometimes from the individual to the regional),
 WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN?

Conducted through an explicit public decision-making process that:

1. Offers the pubic the opportunity to participate in the process in a meaningfulway,
2. Identifies goals and objectives,
3. Analyses existing conditions,
4. Explores alternate concepts and solutions,
5. Evaluates those options with respect to project goals and public values,
6. Selects the preferred alternative or combines preferred elements into a synthesized concept,
7. Includes an implementation strategy.
 WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN?

Urban design is concerned with the arrangement, appearance and function of our suburbs, towns and cities.
It is both a process and an outcome of creating localities in which people live, engage with each other, and engage with the
physical place around them.

Urban design operates at many scales, from the macro scale of the urban structure (planning, zoning, transport and
infrastructure networks) to the micro scale of street furniture and lighting. When fully integrated into policy and planning
systems, urban design can be used to inform land use planning, infrastructure, built form and even the socio-demographic
mix of a place.
 WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN?

• In contrast to architecture, which focuses on the design of individual buildings, urban design deals with the larger scale
of groups of buildings, streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, with the goal of
making urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable.
• It involves the design and coordination of all that makes up cities and towns.
• Urban design involves the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces, transport systems, services, and
amenities.
• Urban design is the process of giving form, shape, and character to groups of buildings, to whole neighborhoods, and
the city.
• Urban design is about making connections between people and places, movement and urban form, nature and the built
fabric.
• Urban design draws together the many strands of place-making, environmental management, social equity and
economic viability into the creation of places with distinct beauty and identity.
 WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN?

• Urban design can influence the economics success and socio-economic composition of a locality whether it encourages
local business and entrepreneurship. Whether it attracts people to live there, whether the cost of living and travel are
affordable and whether access to job opportunities, facilities and services are equitable.
• Urban design determines the physical scale, space and ambience of a place and establishes the built and natural forms
within which individual building and infrastructure are sited. As such it affects the balance between natural ecosystem
and built environment, and their sustainability outcomes.
• Urban design can influence health and the social and cultural impacts of a locality. How people interact with each other,
how they move around, how they use a space.
 WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN?

• Urban design deals with the arrangement, appearance and function of our suburbs, towns and cities.

It involves many disciplines:

• Planning Scale of Urban Design activity
• Development
• Architecture
• Landscape
• Engineering
• Economics
• Law and order
• Economy and Finance
Neighborhood level Town/city level Sub-region/ region level
 WHAT IS NEIGHBORHOOD UNIT PLAN?

The Neighborhood unit plan in in brief is the effort to create a residential

neighborhood to meet the needs of family life in a unit related to the
larger whole but possessing a distinct entity characterized by six factors :
• A child need not cross traffic streets on the way to school.
• A centrally located elementary school which will be within easy walking
distance, no more than one and a half mile from the farthest dwelling.
• A housewife can walk to a shopping center to obtain daily household
gifts.
• Convenient transportation to and from the workplace.
• Scattered neighborhood parks and playgrounds to comprise about 10%
of the whole area.
• A residential environment with harmonious architecture, careful
planting, centrally located community buildings, and special internal
street system with deflection of all through traffic preferably on
thoroughfares which bound and clearly set off neighborhood.
 WHAT IS ‘URBAN SPACE’

• ‘Urban Space’ –Public Spaces within cities, created through arrangement of buildings and other built elements.
• Related to concept of ‘Public Realm --Public Spaces, available for free use.
• Focus on ‘Urban Activity’
• Self contained Island
• Either related to neighboring spaces or may be interconnected.

Street in Walled City, Jaipur Corridor to Golden Temple Amritsar New York’s Washington Square
• URBAN SPACE is actual physical enclosure or its strong articulation by urban forms.
• In a plaza, we must be sufficiently enclosed on all sides so that our attention focuses on the space as an entity.
 OPEN SPACE VS URBAN SPACE

• Open Space – Areas of greenery in or near the city -- natural, park-like open piece of land that is undeveloped (has no
buildings or other built structures) and is accessible to the public. It include Green space (land that is partly or completely
covered with grass, trees, shrubs, or other vegetation).
• Urban Space – Public Spaces within cities, created through arrangement of buildings and other built elements. A public
space refers to an area or place that is open and accessible to all peoples, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or
socio-economic level. These are public gathering spaces such as plazas, squares and parks. Connecting spaces, such as
sidewalks and streets, are also public spaces.
Urban Design work at three different levels
• Block level
• Neighbourhood Level
• Regional Level

City or Town District and Corridor Street and Buildings

Infrastructure Architecture

Public space

Extent of urban design ranges in scale from small public space or street to neighbourhood., city wide system or whole region
 Difference between Architecture, Urban
Design and Urban Planning

Parameters Architecture Urban Design Urban Planning

1. Scale Individual building Spaces between Whole
buildings: street, neighborhood,
park, transit stop district and city

2. Orientation Aesthetic and functional Aesthetic and functional Utility

3. Treatment of 2D & 3D 3D Predominantly 2D

Space
4. Time frame No definite time frame Short Term (<5 years) Long Term (5 to 20
years)
EXAMPLES OF URBAN DESIGN